


These Things Can Never Die

by teprometo



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, First Time, M/M, RPF, the real merlin and arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 08:14:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teprometo/pseuds/teprometo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In short succession, a lot of things happened, and hours alone together in a car had led to the many famed odd things in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Things Can Never Die

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Merlin RPF Challenge. Thanks to [jelazakazone](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jelazakazone) for the quick beta.
> 
>  _The pure, the beautiful, the bright,_  
>  _That stirred our hearts in youth,_  
>  _The impulse to a wordless prayer,_  
>  _The dreams of love and truth,_  
>  _The longings after something lost,_  
>  _The spirit’s yearning cry,_  
>  _The strivings after better hopes,—_  
>  _These things can never die._  
>  \- Sarah Doudney, Things that never die

No one believed them when they said they hadn’t even kissed before that road trip across Wales. Angel blushed a bit and gave them a look, and Katie just burst into laughter. But it was true—kind of. In short succession, a lot of things happened, and hours alone together in a car had led to the many famed odd things in the dark. They did lie a little bit, because it happened before that, the kiss that started everything. It was a joke on the plane, Colin napping and Bradley thinking he was faking to keep from having to share Bradley’s headphones and enthusiasm.

It turned out Colin _was_ faking, but that detail was lost after Bradley had leaned his face in so close to Colin’s to startle him out of his ruse that it must have seemed like something else. No one believed Colin was the one to start it, but he was, if there was even a clear way to categorise that sort of thing. Bradley was about to say Colin’s name, but then Colin’s lips were pressed up against Bradley’s.

Colin swore later he’d also meant it as a joke, something to punish Bradley for being an irritating shit, but Bradley didn’t take it that way. Embarrassingly, he went for tongue almost instantly, a decision he’d later realise meant he’d apparently wanted to kiss Colin for a very long time but hadn’t totally processed it yet. But Colin responded, groaned and opened for him. The armrest dug into Bradley’s side and Colin’s mouth tasted like it had been closed for too long, but those details weren’t very high on the list of things Bradley gave a fuck about. He was more caught up in how Colin’s lips even _felt_ pretty when Bradley slipped between them, around them, sucking and tasting and experiencing a building urgency despite the fact that someone could wake up and walk past them at any moment.

Colin’s hand found its way under Bradley’s shirt, thumb rubbing over his belly, and Bradley’s leg twitched, his knee bouncing up against the tray and knocking his empty complimentary beverage cup onto the floor. They startled and looked around but no one seemed to have noticed, so they turned towards each other again, tongues meeting just a moment before their lips, thrilling and eager.

Colin’s fingers tightened against Bradley’s skin, just above the waist of his jeans, and Bradley felt unusually self-conscious. He was a bit paunchy with the off season, eating enough to sustain the muscle growth he needed and then some. He would cut it all by the time they started filming again, but Colin touching him like that made him feel oddly vulnerable. It also made him realise that Colin probably liked girls, the way he was drawn to the softest part of Bradley.

Even later, with Colin up his arse, with Colin’s mouth around his cock, Bradley never solved the mystery of why they were doing this together as two apparently straight guys. The only clear answer was that they wanted to, and that was good enough for both of them.

They fucked for the first time that night in the hotel, too hard, and Bradley was sore all the next day, shifting about in his seat and remembering that Colin had been inside him such a short time ago. Colin was unusually lovely—that whole trip, he was—and Bradley had moments of questioning what Colin could like about him. But Colin _did_ like him; there was no question. His hands and lips were restless over Bradley’s skin, touching everywhere they could reach as he spread Bradley’s legs wider, fucked him deeper.

Colin set his alarm for four in the morning and slept with Bradley until then. They were sweaty and too warm but stayed hot and slick against each other, like they needed to prove that this wasn’t going to fuck up their friendship. (It did, later, for a few years when neither of them was willing to admit how much they needed each other, when Bradley started dating other people and Colin started dating his work. But even then, there were guilty fucks, and sometimes they got back together, like they were boyfriends, and other times they ignored each other. But if Bradley was honest with himself, he always expected he’d end up with Colin anyway, because no matter what it said about him, he had never learned how to love anyone else with quite the same intensity.)

Colin left for his own room, and Bradley threw on some shorts and an undershirt and climbed back into bed, falling asleep assured that Colin would be up and showering and eating breakfast while Bradley got a few more hours of sleep. The next time he woke up, it was to a knock at the door, the cameraman whose name Bradley hadn’t thought to ask for looking exhausted on the other side.

“Just get in bed, and I’ll set up,” the guy said, and Bradley crawled back into his warm spot. He didn’t mean to fall asleep again, but next thing, he was startled awake by someone’s voice, and he reached for Colin before remembering he’d already gone.

The rest of the trip revolved around trying to find enough time away from the crew for a quick hand job—a habit that made them disgustingly, unforgivably late for their first meeting with Scott Lloyd at the Arthurian library (and pretty much every appointment thereafter). They came like seventeen-year-olds, hard, sloppy, and often. Colin perfected the art of sneakily turning off the dashboard camera before reaching into Bradley's lap. The sly little fucker even crept beneath Bradley's arm to finish him off with his mouth, so hot and unexpected that Bradley had to switch on his hazard warning lights and stop in the middle of the empty road so he could fist his fingers in Colin’s soft hair and come, Colin swallowing around him.

The sex was good—like, really, ridiculously, life-ruiningly good—but that wasn’t even the thing that made Bradley start to question really fundamental shit about himself, beyond learning that he was probably bisexual or that he was now the type of bloke who fucked his coworkers. He realised he’d always craved intimacy with Colin, more than with other people, and when Colin began to welcome it with shoulders turned towards Bradley, a knowing curve of his lips, a hand over his on the gear lever, Bradley kept pushing for more. He wanted to take afternoon naps wrapped up in Colin’s warmth, to have Colin’s things in his flat. He wanted mundane shit like being expected to text when he was going to be late coming home. He wanted to be _boyfriends_.

It wasn’t possible. They were limited to sly touches and subtle eye contact, to frantic fucking against the bonnet of that stupid little car after the crew had left and it was too dark for that weird chap in shorts to see them. He could hardly see Colin in front of him, just the white of his teeth when he panted out his orgasm, wet in Bradley’s hand. He kissed Colin’s nose, its cold surprising against his mouth, and Colin let out a breathless laugh. Bradley was sure he’d never heard a happier sound in his life.

It turned out they weren’t actually subtle at all. After filming was over and they’d done their voiceovers, they were invited in to watch the finished special, and Bradley’s face burned hot when he saw how fucking obvious he was, the dopey, moon-eyed face he wore when he looked at Colin.

Even Colin noticed, said something about it that night in Bradley’s bed, rocking gently on Bradley’s cock. “You look at me like—” he said, pausing on the thought, and Bradley filled it in for him before he could say something too true.

“Like you’re beautiful,” Bradley said, and it came out too earnest, too close to the thing in him that had been burning for Colin all that time. “Because you are.”

Colin chuckled and leaned forward, dragged his lips across Bradley’s mouth, and said, “And you are the only person who ever gets to call me that.”

Years later, that small moment was the only reason Bradley was even thinking of that documentary, that road trip, those few precious days he got to spend with Colin before work and life and fame fucked everything up.

Because Colin called him at two in the morning while Bradley was on the other side of the world, and Bradley answered. Because Colin’s name on his phone was such a fucking rare occurrence, and he hadn’t heard that ringtone in nearly a year. Because Colin’s voice was thin and ashamed on the other end when he said, “Can you say that thing only you’re allowed to say?”

His chest tightened, and he almost couldn’t get the words out, but for Colin, because Colin was still so goddamn precious to him, he managed an honest, “You’re beautiful.”

Colin was silent then, just his unsteady breathing making it to Bradley, and Bradley stood quiet with him, didn’t give a fuck about the international charge to his phone. He let Colin breathe, and eventually figured out how to breathe himself.

He didn’t know if this was a crossroads or an invitation or anything of the sort. He only knew that Colin still placed value in the fact that Bradley found him beautiful, and that was enough. And he recalled the few afternoon naps, the handful of things Colin left in his flat, that Bradley still had with him and would likely never give back, never toss out.

“I don’t have a right to ask,” Colin said finally, after many minutes had passed.

“Yes, you do,” was all Bradley could think to say in response, his heart in his throat.

“I think you should—I want you to come back.” In his mind, Bradley’s bags were already packed, and then Colin added a faint, “For me.”

Bradley grinned so hard it hurt his face, and he laughed, loud and jubilant. “See you soon, beautiful,” he said, not giving a shit how cheesy it was.

He thought back to that first kiss in the back of an airplane surrounded by sleeping people, to that first fuck in a bland hotel room, to that first time he almost told Colin he loved him but called him beautiful instead, and he wondered if Merlin had saved a little magic for them after all, drawing them together to explore the Welsh countryside and become fluent in the language of each other.


End file.
